Here’s an update on my new Iridient cross platform projects as of June 16, 2016.

December 2015 I completed work on getting most all of the Iridient Developer image processing pipeline to build and run under 3 operating systems (Mac, Windows and Linux) and under 3 different compilers (Clang/LLVM, GCC and MS Visual Studio).

I then set a 3 month goal to take this core image processing functionality and create a set of minimal RAW conversion programs to apply several of the most highly regarded portions of the Iridient pipeline (RAW demosaic, sharpening, noise reduction, color management and lens correction) with minimal to no user interaction required for the conversion stage. All of the processing stages other than the RAW demosaic will be totally optional so if you happen to prefer Lightroom’s sharpening or NR or color handling any of these stages can be left out. On the other hand if you aren’t a fan of Lightroom’s existing sharpening/nr/color you’ll have the option to use Iridient processing for some or all of these stages as well.

Exported images from these products will be compatible with most any other image editing or management program that is compatible with the linear DNG 1.4 format. Export of more completely processed TIFF and JPEG images was originally planned, but has been postponed to a post 1.0 or perhaps a „plus/pro” version of the software that may include some other additional features.

The main goal for these new programs is to provide photographers that are largely happy with Lightroom, Photoshop or other image editors the ability to take advantage of the highest quality Iridient RAW processing stages as quickly and effortlessly as possible without having to learn or spend significant time in another full featured RAW processor.

Critical items still to be completed before public release include the user interface, cross platform license handling, documentation, installer, web pages for information and download and the web store. I have completed all these tasks previously for Iridient Developer and other projects so in theory I should have pretty good idea how long these things may take to get done For Iridient Developer, from scratch, I completed much of this same work in less than a month although the user interface and documentation was much, much more complex. Though back then I was not juggling as many other tasks as I am now….

Beyond getting much more familiar (and more frustrated) with the available developer tools and frameworks for quickly building a user interface on Windows in C/C++, I made very little progress by my March release goal though I did settle on Visual Studio for IDE and wxWidgets for a UI toolkit on Windows.

I extended my release goal to the end of April figuring with my development environment and UI frameworks being reasonably settled another month would be plenty

Not long after moving my March goal to April Apple released their 10.11.4 update which contained a bug that seriously effected my Iridient Developer product. Dealing with and working around this issue took most of my time over the next month.

So much for that April goal… Iridient Developer 3.1 was released April 29 and successfully works around this issue with 10.11.4. New RAW camera introductions also have now slowed dramatically (there have been some 37 new RAW cameras added to Iridient Developer so far in 2016!) so going forward I should have some more spare time.

Good news in May I was able to finish complete about 80% of the user interface and supporting functionality. New cross platform license/registration handling is now 90% done. Still have some artwork (icons, etc) to complete, documentation to write, installer to package and web pages/store to do plus final testing.

I still feel I should be able to wrap things up within a „month”, but given the level of progress I’ve made the past 5+ months „summer” is probably a more realistic goal. Worst case it could be 3-6 more months.

Software scheduling is never easy whether your a tiny team of 1 or a big company with 100s of developers.. Yes, I could hire out some or all of this work to others… Yes, I’ve considered crowd funding… I’m certain I’ll consider and re-consider all these things and more in order to continue to run a successful business, enjoy myself and make the world a better place.

Iridient Developer on the Mac is still my primary focus and I have no intention of ignoring it or my current customers. In the 12 years since starting Iridient Digital I have always set aside time to work on R&D projects, investigate new hardware/software opportunities (smartphones, tablets, iOS, Android, digital cinema/video, etc) and learn new skills. These cross platform products are my primary focus for this „R&D” time currently but if something critical comes up with Iridient Developer as happened in March-April this work will be temporarily set aside. The upcoming release of macOS Sierra will likely be one such distraction and I am definitely hoping to have these new products completed before Fall.

Assuming these initial products show strong interest on Windows/Linux I’ll likely go on to develop more full featured Windows/Linux compatible products in the future.

Whew, I think that’s about it… now I need to put this up on my web site somewhere